January 2025 Social Platform Updates

What a start to 2025! TikTok was banned, then unbanned – all within 24 hours.

Reddit and Snap became the latest rivals to take advantage of the uncertainty surrounding TikTok, offering discounts to advertisers.

Meanwhile Instagram rolled out new features almost every week, and Threads announced it’s getting into the ad game.

Here's everything else you may have missed in the world of social last month...

Bluesky 🦋

✦Bluesky launched a trending videos tab to catch up on what's hot in the Bluesky community.

Facebook 👍

✦ Meta is replacing fact-checking with X/Twitter-style community notes, making crowdsourced context the new norm.

✦ Facebook now displays affiliate links at the bottom of Reels and more prominent product links in photo and text posts.

Instagram 📷

✦ Instagram now lets users in the U.S. upload Reels up to 3 minutes long.

✦ Meta plans to add political content to recommendations across Instagram and Threads. 

✦ IG is testing trial Reels and experimenting with new ways to keep creativity flowing.

✦ Insta has ended its program that allowed creators to earn from ads on their profiles.

✦ Head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, introduced "Edits," a mobile video editor aiming to rival CapCut—making editing on the go that much easier.

✦ Instagram is offering TikTok creators cash bonuses between $10,000 to $50,000+ per month to post exclusive Reels.

✦ Announced a separate cash bonus program for Reels without posting restrictions, offering smaller incentives—more ways to earn.

✦ The new "Breakthrough Bonus" program targets TikTok creators, offering up to $5,000 over three months for posting Reels on Facebook and Instagram.

✦ Introduced new metrics "View Rate" and "Views Over Time" to better understand audience  engagement.

✦ Grid preview shifted from square to a 3:4 ratio, with the tallest content now at a 4:5 ratio.

✦ Mosseri highlighted key signals for high-ranking stories: likelihood of taps, likes, and replies.

Reddit 🔴

✦ Reddit introduced an AI-generated search engine called Reddit Answers.

✦ Reddit launched Trends Tracking for businesses to monitor keywords in real-time.

✦ Unveiled AMA Ads, allowing brands to promote their own Ask Me Anything sessions. 

Snapchat 👻

✦ Snap offered a 20% ad spend rebate to advertisers spending over $100,000.

Spotify 🎵

✦ Spotify launched the Spotify Partner Program, a creator monetization initiative.

Substack 🔸

✦ Substack rolled out live video capabilities to all publishers. 

✦ After livestreams, Substack now provides recordings and AI-generated clips for sharing.

✦ Announced a new $20 million creator accelerator fund to help creators grow their subscription-based businesses.

Threads 🧵

✦ Threads is testing ads in the U.S. and Japan.

✦ Threads is rolling out a markup feature to let users easily add their take on someone else's post.

✦ You can tag friends and brands in your photos on Threads!

✦ Testing the ability to set a display name and add cover images to profiles. 

TikTok ♪

✦ On January 18, TikTok temporarily suspended U.S. services after ByteDance refused to divest before the deadline, but resumed operations after 17 hours.

✦ TikTok added a dislike button.

X 🐦

✦ X is rolling out labels for parody accounts.

✦ X launched a vertical video feed for U.S. users.

✦ Elon Musk announced an "algorithm tweak" to promote more informational content and maximize "unregretted user seconds".

YouTube 🎥

✦ YouTube is testing a tool to help creators turn long-form videos into Shorts.

✦ YouTube has increased max video length for Shorts from 1 minute to 3 minutes.

✦ Introducing new experimental features for Premium subscribers, including picture-in-picture for Shorts and offline viewing of recommended Shorts.

Others 📝

✦ Favorited, a Los Angeles-based livestreaming app for creators and fans, raised $1.3 million in pre-seed funding.

✦ Flip, a social shopping app with a TikTok-like feed of recommended videos, launched a $100 million creator fund.

✦ Pixelfed, an Instagram rival, launched iOS and Android apps.

✦ Tumblr released a video feed called Tumblr TV.

✦ Kick is giving streamers the ability to back up live action and replay big moments. 

✦ U.S. downloads of RedNote were up more than 200% year-over-year during the runup to the TikTok ban. 

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